Fuel Poverty Modelling

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero is legally bound to monitor and publish estimates of fuel poverty by the Warm Homes and Conservation Act 2001, as amended by the Energy Act 2013. Fuel poverty is measured based on a combination of energy efficiency, energy costs and household income. All the fuel poverty indicators used in England and the other UK nations use these core three measurements to calculate the individual metrics used by each nation to determine whether a household is fuel poor, how deep into fuel poverty it is and what changes in energy efficiency or income/costs would be needed to remove the household from fuel poverty. The objective of this modelling project is to model those three estimates for households taking part in the English Housing Survey physical survey. While the current metric for fuel poverty in England will be reviewed in the fuel poverty strategy update next year the vast majority of the proposed contracted work is to derive these core measurements that will underpin any likely metric choice. The project will involve developing a detailed understanding of the data sources, energy demand modelling and the fuel poverty metric(s). The modelling needs to continually evolve over time as building technologies, household behaviour and changes in energy demand, energy pricing and impacts of Government policy all have impacts on the number and type of fuel poor households that need to be understood. The modelling will be used to deliver the annual Fuel Poverty National Statistics consistent with the latest English Housing Survey. The modelling will be used for subsequent in-house projections by DESNZ: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/fuel-poverty-statistics